What causes someone to pull their hair out?

Thankks for your question, which gives me a great opportunity to let you know what we know about the condition.

A person would pull out their hair if they have trichotillomania. Trichotillomania is a compulsive over-grooming condition which can run in families. For example, if a particular gene variant is bred out of miice, they will stop picking their fur and over-grooming.

People may carry the gene variant, but not pull out their hair. The gene variant is switched off. It gets switched on in extgremely stressful situations … so people do this type of anxiety related behavior (or BFRB – body focused repetitive behavior) when stressed (at least at first – later it can become a self-comforting behavior.

Actually to a person WITH the gene variant, hair pulling feels really good, while a person without the trichotillomania gene variant, hair pulling hurts.

I hope that helps you but do feel free to let me know if you have any other questions.